Soon
by S.R Devaste
Summary: AU one-shot. Patrick Jane, phony psychic has an unusual guest on his show whom he gives a cold reading to. Jisbon.
1. Chapter 1

**Soon**

A/N: AU ahoy! Un-edited.

When Patrick Jane smiles he is showing his face to the audience the same way magicians show a deck of cards before the trick.

"Volunteers?"

Hands shoot up a little faster than normal, but then again, this show is well publicized. It's his 10th successful broadcast.

He strolls down the three steps until he's level with the audience. Directly in front of him is an obese woman with the watery look of someone in mourning. Her father died— no. Judging by the look in her eyes the wound's fresh and if her father had just died she wouldn't be going to a T.V show. Maybe a cat?

Her eyes beg him to pick her with such earnestness Patrick Jane knows he can't. Even the unobservant will notice how easy a mark she is.

Instead, Patrick turns on the heel of his newly polished leather shoe, closes his eyes and points. He leaves his eyes closed for a moment to enhance the effect, although he's eager to open them. He can hear the murmurs of the audience at his choice.

"I didn't volunteer," says a throaty, if feminine voice. Not a smoker, but someone who works long hours.

Jane grins, that same magic-trick grin, shiny as a flipped coin and just as unpredictable, as he opens his eyes. "All the better."

The new mark is objectively pretty with her dark, short hair, and liquid-fire green eyes, but not his type. Not young enough, not needy enough

She crosses her arms, but the motion is practiced. The motion of a mother, but no, she looks too sharp to be a mother. A boss then. She can feel him looking at her, and almost flinches from it. Perhaps—

The screen of the prompter blinks a warning. He's been silent too long. A couple seconds of dead air is equivalent to turning off the jets of an airplane midflight. People have to believe that the trick is effortless.

"I didn't volunteer," she repeats

"If I picked a volunteer whose to say I wouldn't be using an accomplice," Jane counters.

This garners a laugh from the audience. They are all such believers that the thought of Jane being a fraud is humorous. But aren't the best jokes always true?

"I have stage fright."

"Don't worry," he soothes, "it will be easy. Everyone's on your side."

The audience claps, as if this will prove that point.

"All the same." The woman's arms hug her chest tighter, but her lips quiver, about to break into a smile.

Jane crosses his arms hoping that she'll uncross hers in response. It's a move tantamount to physical reverse psychology. When people trust you they mirror you, and when they don't—

Bingo.

The woman uncrosses her arms the moment Jane crosses his. In a flash, he's clasping both of her hands in his. Her's are warm; this fact isn't important, but Jane has found particular affection for unimportant facts when it comes to the reluctant woman, as he's dubbed her.

"You came here, because you wanted to see me." Jane begins, in a low even tone. "You wanted to see me, because you've been curious." His father had made him practice with a metronome when he was little to get his words perfectly measured. "You've been curious so you came here, and now that you're here it really is important for you to take this opportunity."

"I—" she tries to interrupt him. More self aware then most.

"I'm here to help you." Jane presses two of his fingers to her pulse in time with her heartbeat.

"If I go up there," she nods to the stage, "I'll _never_ live it down at work."

_Interesting, interesting._ "Would it be okay if I did the reading down here then? Unless you're a spy and you don't want me prying into your secrets."

He hand flickers toward her belt, a barely noticeable tick.

"I understand why you'd be reluctant to come up on stage with a psychic," Jane conspires.

"I don't think you do." A smirk kisses the woman's lips with self-satisfaction.

Jane has to reign in a smirk himself. _She thinks she can keep a secret from me. _

"It wouldn't do for an officer of the law to seen believing in magic."

The woman's eyes widen. "What gave it away?"

"I know things, nothing," his smile turned to a frown of disgust, "_gave it away, _Miss…"

"Ag—Lisbon."

Again, Jane closes his eyes, remembering to the pre-show briefing where Tanner always showed him the seat-plan. Quickly he scans through his memory palace until he comes to hers.

"Teresa."

Her face is a fireworks display of wonder and suspicion. She's a woman of contrasts all right.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to pry into any of your ongoing investigations, _Agent_ Lisbon. Not an ordinary cop, but not FBI." _Too far from Quantico for that. _

Teresa's barriers try and reform themselves; she even takes a step back shaking her head. "I'd prefer not to talk about work, Mr. Jane, I'm on vacation."

Her eyes burn brighter. She's lying, but there's no use saying that now.

"Of course, of course. Then you'll come on stage with me, Teresa?"

Her eyes move upward, but don't complete a final roll, yet her lips have loosened and are closer to smiling. "Sure."

Surprising himself, Jane takes her hand, and leads her up to the couch and desk set up in front of the cameras. There's no reason to, he's touched her hand once, he'll gain no more new information from it. But he wants to, so he does.

She's dressed in a pants suit and has no problem getting settled on the couch with a perfunctory crossing of the legs, a move oddly feminine for a cop. Maybe his motherly vibe wasn't too far off.

"So you don't want to talk about work; what would you like to talk about then?"

"I don't know. It's your show, Mr. Jane."

"How about your family?"

She leans backward in her seat, her eyes hardening. Again, her hand flicks to her belt, searching for the comfort of a holster that isn't there.

"No. Not your family, then. But if not your family or your work then it will have to be your love life." His tone is glib, but his eyes are unmoving as they're fixed on hers, checking in to make sure that he hasn't pushed to far.

She doesn't blush, but the slight look to the ground gives away far more. The police-woman indulging the psychic is gone, replaced with the embarrassed, single woman, almost to thirty and with no serious relationship to speak of.

"You're a beautiful woman, Teresa, and that's nothing to be embarrassed of." He leans backward, mirroring her, but it's only after he's made the movement that he realizes what he's done. "Neither is the fact that you prefer to be alone. That you guard yourself."

"Everyone guards themselves, Mr. Jane." Bereft of her gun and badge she wields her professionalism.

"Many people do, but few people know what they're really guarding against." Although Jane can make guesses to what drove her to the police force, he chooses to keep those postulations to himself. She is already on the brink of running.

For all her discomfort, she looks him head on and nods, unabashed. "Yes."

Her forthrightness is contagious. "I am unmarried myself." The reflection of himself in the perpetually blank prompter, reminds him, that _fuck_ he is on T.V and he has to stop getting lost here. So he offers the audience a knowing glance. "For me it's difficult to find the time to have a personal life. And even if I could, in my line of work…"

The art of silence is one of Jane's favorites, and he uses it well, allowing his words to fade away.

She shifts forward, putting her weight on the tips of her black heels.

"To devote all of your time and care to one person. Well, it would be selfish. Romance is different from platonic love. You're worried it would consume you." He cocks his head. "You're worried you'd lose control." _And without control you lose people. _

"I've loved people," she corrects, and she's not smiling anymore, but she's not frowning either.

"Yes, but you've never been in love. There's a big difference."

He can feel that difference, watching her with her wide eyes.

"I don't know if there is," she says proudly, as if she's won the right to say this.

"Exactly," he can't contain his glee. "You don't know."

She's caught now; she believes. Patrick would feel bad about lying to her, but reading someone hasn't felt this good in a while. Anyway, her posture is so stiff but her eyes are so alive. She needs help.

He leans forward and takes her hand into his own. Her pulse beats fast triplets and her hand's are warmer then before. "But you will know. One day."

Gently, with his thumb he strokes the side of her hand and he is pleased when he sees goose bumps raise in its wake.

"Soon."

And that's when the buzzer rings.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: By popular request more on this. I'm not really seriously planning on continuing it, but if I feel the impetus I may add more I suppose. Even more un-edited than the last. Read at your own risk.

The buzzer sounds just in his own earpiece. He turns to the camera with a plastic smile and no uncertainty. "And we'll be back with more after a short break."

Once they hit commercial the crowd shifts, confused and a little giddy. They're hoping something _unscripted_ will happen, Jane knows.

It never does, not dramatically enough that the hordes of housewives that compromise his core base would notice.

Teresa is leaning back in her chair now, arms folded back over her chest like a bullet proof vest. She half-raises an eyebrow at him. "Nice bit."

"You are determined not to trust me," he says with a rare mixture of frustration and honesty.

So much for a con.

She, however, is not half as good at reading him as he is her. If she were Jane bets she would blush. "I'm not here as a fan."

"So you _are_ a fan."

"No," she says a little too hastily.

"Newly minted then." He shrugs off a hair touch up, knowing that Teresa will open up more if there is at least a little bit of an illusion of privacy.

It doesn't work; she is all tact. "I'm impressed with your work, Mr. Jane, you're very perceptive." The bland professionalism is almost worse than if she said he was a pile of horse-shit swindler.

_If you think you're going to get away with that you're talking to the wrong man. _"Oh come on."

Her voice gets scratchy when it's indignant. "What?" He likes the color that comes to her cheeks, not red, but not pink either.

"Nothing," he admits freely, "I just get bored with the whole 'I'm a professional bit.' Don't you ever get bored?"

"I—"

He waves her away; annoyed at something about her he can't quite place. "No, of course you don't. You believe in law and order and procedure."

"Yes, I do."

Why is that every time he tries to rile her she manages to take his insults as a point of pride?

How frustrating.

Jane motions to the slim make-up girl who brushes powder in to lock the unnatural rosiness to his cheeks and highlights under his cheekbones. She is very pretty and he has already slept with her once. His gaze follows her small breasts as she bends over his forehead.

"And it's because of that, that I need your help. Procedure as usual isn't getting the job done."

Janes eyes dart back to the small brunette, sitting in the oversized talk show host chair with just a little too much poise.

But her eyes are wide, and with just enough. . .

"I knew that," he says, because it's true, and also because he feels a need to preen. "You need me to consult on the Red John Case."

"So the psychic reads his emails, even if he doesn't reply," she teases.

She's not taking him seriously, he realizes. But, judging from the fact that she's stopped tapping her shoe against the floor and has uncrossed her legs (still crossed at the ankle of course), she's also relaxed.

"You mock me," he says in a seriousness that is also mocking and also, incidentally, serious, "even after I've read you very accurately."

Slim make-up girl, whose real name is Heather, but likes to be called much dirtier names in bed, flashes her pearly veneers at him and mouths. "One minute."

Teresa gives no evidence that that the blonde girl even exists. Which is more telling than anything else she's done this evening.

Yeah, she's definitely a fan, whether she knows it yet or not.

Heather holds up ten fingers and brings one down.

"I don't want you to analyze me anymore," says Teresa, quickly enough for Jane to know it was impulsive, but never breaking the veneer of porcelain "police-woman-ness" completely.

"I'm not analyzing you. I'm telling your future."

Five fingers left.

"Can you not," she squirms in her chair, and lowers her voice to a whisper, "I would really appreciate it. The whole love life thing was cute but—" Her green eyes are puppy dog eyes.

"I'm not going to talk about your fathers or your brothers." Jane almost convinces himself he's telling her this to make her feel better, but this a lie.

The longest cons are the one's we run on ourselves after all.

No, he does it for the flicker of fear and wonder that flashes across her face at the fact that he, a complete stranger, knows her deepest secrets.

She shakes her head in bemusement, but he can still taste her childish belief. This is what Santa Claus would feel like—if he were real. Or maybe, if he's feeling more ambitious, God who had just converted Richard Dawkins.

He presses his lips together. Man what a mark. Hardened, professional, but underneath it all . . .

One finger.

He can't help it. He reaches out a hand to lay over hers again.

She withdraws, but not lightening quick. She had to _decide_ to move her hand away.

Just before cameras start rolling he whispers, "Come talk to me after the show."

"I could get a warrant," she hisses back, but it's poisonless.

Playfully he kicks her shoe with his own and whispers, "Shh, we're rolling."

And true to his word Jane doesn't go any deeper than generalizations, about Teresa, some of which he knows are false. For example she definitely doesn't have a puppy that just died, but she has the grace to nod half-heartedly and say that it was very sad to lose little Bobo.

He really will have to work with her on this lying business. There is no way in hell that anyone would ever believe that she would name her dog Bobo.

But to show appreciation for her cooperation he lets her off stage a little earlier than normal, although he does make eye contact with her periodically during the rest of the show, and when he brings another woman on stage he references "our good Lady Policeman Teresa with the dog named Bobo," and gives her a wink.

He's glad she's a policewoman, because god knows the rest of the women in the crowd are beginning to become uneasy with the amount of attention directed her way.

But then the closing credits run, files out and he heads to his green room. Heather, with a little more of her small cleavage showing than before, takes off his mike and washes his face for him, and once that is complete he settles in to wait.

It's just a matter of time before his little Teresa comes a knocking after all.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Pre-Angela and Pre-Red John Jane is fun to write. Maybe I'll write more. As always un-edited, and no promises. Thanks for all the reviews, though!

Three minutes later the door opens, and he stands up out of his cloth "directors chair" ready to greet Teresa.

"Hello," says a gruff, male voice. Decidedly not Teresa, but also a cop. Asian, mid thirties. Judging from the stiffness of his walk and blank face he's seen a lot. Possibly ex soldier. No, there's something too familiar about him for that. Criminal. Ex-criminal now, if he's got a badge.

Jane knows immediately that Teresa sent them, but they don't know he knows that. "Sorry, who are you?"

The man flashes his badge with subliminal quickness. "Agent Cho."

"Pleasure."

The door opens behind Cho, and in walks a woman, but again, not Teresa. She's beautiful in a way Teresa isn't, with long, red hair (not the bastardized reddish-orange that most people have) and Marilyn Monroe curves—but she walks like an agent too. It's an objectively appealing combination.

"And you are?" Jane steps closer to the red-head. She flinches a little at his nearness, but not out of hormonal nerves. No, her eyes, flick to Agent Cho, as if to ask "is this okay."

"Agent Van Pelt."

Jane nods once. "So what can I do for you, Agents?" He grins.

Van Pelt shifts uneasily. "Well, you met our supervisor earlier this evening. She was on your show, although she was undercover at the time."

Jane's grins widens. So Teresa hadn't told them anything that transpired between them, had she?

The silence comforts Van Pelt, and it loosens her tongue. "We're here regarding a high profile murder investigation." As she speaks Jane notices the way her eyes are now fully fixed on him.

"Red John is a serial killer," she adds, "although I'm sure you knew that." Unlike the other two Agents she looks at him the same way the woman with the dead dog did, with a need. He finds it less flattering than he used to.

Jane closes his eyes, and lowers his voice to a spiritual drawl. "You're the one who thought I would be a good fit for the—" he plays at struggling to remember the logo that was so briefly flashed in front of him "—

CBI. Your boss, Teresa, came to my show to vet me and must have deemed me acceptable" _but unsettling _"so now you're here to handle the paperwork, because you're a rooky and he—" he jerks his thumb at Agent Cho, "is here to make sure you don't reveal a genuine appreciation for my craft. You've always admired those with access to their spiritual sides. In fact you have a relative—"

"You're a con man," says Agent Cho, with a surprising lack of venom.

Jane smiles merrily as he opens his eyes. "Teresa seemed to think the same thing, yet here you are."

"_Agent Lisbon_," Van Pelt corrects gently, "only spoke very highly of Mr. Jane."

"No, she didn't." Jane and Cho said in unison.

For a moment they both look at each other as if they had physically and not verbally collided.

Jane recovers first. "She didn't say anything at all to you about me; no need to worry about my ego, Agent Van Pelt."

This is a truth, but only part of one. Jane is quite certain that Teresa said nothing about him to Grace, the rookie was so green she didn't even warrant a briefing yet. However, she definitely said something to Cho, something unflattering.

"Would you like to see a magic trick?" The question is showmanly loud, but his gaze is nowhere except for Van Pelt. He knows better than to try and tempt Agent Cho, at least not directly.

Jane enjoys watching Van Pelt try to reign in her curiosity, they way she takes exactly one step forward, before again, looking at Cho, who face remains as bland as ever.

The swinging open of the door stops Jane from releasing the small jet of fake fire from inside of his sleeve. Shame too, he wanted to see if Cho would jump. He knew the luscious, red-head would.

"Van Pelt?"

Again, a voice an octave too low to be Teresa.

Damn it all, why is he actually registering disappointment at this? She's just a mark. Albeit a mark that comes with an entourage to do her dirty work.

Hastily, Van Pelt pulls off her shoulder bag and fishes out a leaflet of pristinely neat papers. The rookie is trying, at least.

"Here," she thrusts the papers at him.

Jane takes them graciously.

The owner of the bass heavy voice steps in front of Agent Cho. If Agent Van Pelt is Marylyn, with a professional stride instead of a girly whoopsy-do walk, then the newcomer is Joe Demaggio—or some other sports player. Jane has never really cared much for athletics.

The second fact Jane notices about the new comer that he is either a very bad agent or in love with Van Pelt. Instead of surveying the room for threats, or even glancing at Jane, the first person the new guy's attention goes to is to Van Pelt.

Jane doesn't blame him too much. Van Pelt could have been a model, or Jane's make-up girl.

Scanning the papers at a speed so fast no ordinary human would have thoroughly read them, Jane pulls a pen from his sleeve (a poor substitution for a jet of flame but it would do for now) and signs.

"Here." He hands it back to Van Pelt.

"You should really read that first, Mr. Jane," says Van Pelt nervously, her face cast half in shadow by the hulking new agent lurking behind her.

"He already signed it," says the new agent, "anyway it's just a confidentiality agreement. He'll be fine."

"I'm sure I will . . ."

"Agent Rigsby," the too-thick jawed agent replies.

The buzzer located right near the bulbs that illuminate the mirrors of his dressing room rings. It's the same buzzer that signaled commercial break. "Sorry, if you don't mind."

"Actually," protests Rigsby.

"It's no problem," finishes Cho.

"Patrick! Great show! Absolutely great! The best!" comes a muffled voice from the speaker.

"Thank you, Mikey." Jane sits back down in his chair. "I think our guests were very good in particular." He offers not even a scrap of attention to the CBI agents. He admits a small vindictive pleasure in making them wait for him, although he's not completely sure why he's so annoyed.

"You're so modest."

It's statements like this that let Jane know that his agent will shoot rainbows up his ass just so he can look for the pot of gold at the end of them, but Jane says only, "I try. Although I have some bad news."

"What?"

"I'm going to be out of the office for a bit."

"Why?" Mike adds about ten extra syllables to the word, turning it into an operatic whine.

"Got to catch a bad guy. Gotham needs me."

"How long?"

"Oh, I don't think it should take me anymore than a week."


End file.
